What are Cannabis Tinctures?

Tinctures are drops that contain THC or CBD.

Are you ready for a taste of the least controversial method of consuming cannabis ever? Try a tincture. “Why would I want to do that,” you ask? Because tinctures have been described as the most underrated of all the pot products.

They’re described as such because there aren’t as many fun — and potentially punishable — reefer rituals associated with their use. But that doesn’t mean that they’re somehow second-rate.

Tinctures are arguably underutilized compared to raw flowers, joints, blunts, bongs, edibles, and dabs even though they work just as well…or sometimes even better.

Yep, you read that right. For many people, tinctures often work better than every other method of cannabis consumption, including cream, pills, gummies, and dissolvable strips. It really depends on what you need from your marijuana and how you prefer to take it.

Production

The process of making a tincture is very much like dissolving sugar in water or making Kool-Aid. The solids (the sugar or the Kool-Aid mix) break down and liquefy in the water, transferring their chemical makeup (sweetness) into the resultant solution.

The same thing happens when making a tincture — only the ingredients change. The alcohol dissolves the plant matter and all the chemicals it contains (trichomes, cannabinoids, oils, terpenes, and others). Those chemicals are then suspended in a solution (much like Kool-Aid mix in water) that can be ingested or administered under the tongue.

The Benefits Of Marijuana Tincture

Marijuana tinctures offer a long list of benefits. To give you an idea just how great marijuana tincture is, here are a few of the benefits you can enjoy whether you take a THC tincture for pleasure or a CBD tincture to relieve pain:

• You feel the effects quickly
• You can easily control the amount of tincture you take
• Marijuana tinctures are discreet (meaning you don’t have to worry about standing out)
• Tinctures are safe
• Tinctures have a long shelf life when stored properly

Obviously, you would only use a THC tincture to achieve a psychoactive high (although THC does have some pain-fighting properties). But if you use a CBD tincture, the benefits multiply. That’s because a CBD tincture can be used to treat:

• Low appetite
• Insomnia
• Nausea and vomiting
• Hyperglycemia (high blood sugar)
• Inflammation
• Psoriasis
• Chronic pain
• Artery blockage
• Psychosis
• Bacterial growth
• Anxiety
• Cancer cell growth
• Convulsions
• Bone degeneration
• Seizures
• Muscle spasms

Couple the above benefits with the safe, fast-acting, easy-to-dose nature of the tincture itself, and you’ve got a potent recipe for medical relief of the toughest symptoms.

Taking Marijuana Tinctures

One of the main benefits of a tincture is that it’s very easy to take. Drops of tincture solution are squeezed out through an eyedropper syringe under your tongue. There, the solution is left to be absorbed (not swallowed) into your bloodstream through a process called osmosis.

Osmosis occurs when molecules of a solvent (the ethanol and all the cannabis chemical it contains) pass through a semipermeable membrane (the tissue under your tongue) from a less concentrated solution into a more concentrated one on the other side in order to equalize the concentrations on both sides of the membrane.

When Will You Feel The Effects?

The onset of the euphoric or medicinal effects of a tincture will kick in just a little bit slower than they would if you were smoking, but much faster than they would from an edible of the same strain of weed. You’ll feel the effects of two to three drops under your tongue within about 15 minutes.

This is why tinctures are infinitely superior to edibles in terms of the process of trial and error by which you determine the right amount of cannabis that your unique endocannabinoid system requires in order to feel optimal.

The more scientific name for this “try-and-see” practice is titration. You’ll often hear this term bandied around by those in the know because it’s easier to say than, “the process of trial and error by which you determine the right amount of cannabis that your unique endocannabinoid system requires in order to feel optimal.”

See what we mean? Why say 26 words when you can say just one and mean the same thing? Start using the word titration now so you at least sound like you know what you’re talking about.